You know, I really liked Season 1 but this season is turning into a classic comedy season right here.
You know, I really liked Season 1 but this season is turning into a classic comedy season right here.
Yeah, another good episode. I really liked the Adam/Ray dynamic. I wish they would bring Charlie back more often though.
The phone call was easily the highlight of the episode. Really spoke to Hannah and Marnie's relationship and where their friendship is right now.
My only complaint is that once again Shoshanna (and Jessa, who did get a bigger role two episodes ago) gets absolutely nothing to do. Even Ray is more fleshed out than her at this point.
Just when I thought the show couldn't get any better, Ben Mendelsohn is going to be playing Jessa's dad next episode. So fucking awesome.
It looks like next episode is going to be almost entirely focused on JessaOriginally Posted by Eduardo Zuckerberg
How is this a comedy? This season has been very dramatic, if u ask me.
While this is true and I agree with you, her single scene made me laugh so hard. I was almost in tears. I love her so much. But like, I would hate her in real life and would probably kill her?
You can always tell the episodes that Lena Dunham doesn't write. I wasn't into the Ray/Adam Staten Island adventures like I thought I would, but yay for Adam Driver's return. Please keep him around for the rest of the season somehow. The Hannah/Marnie phone call at the end was excellent.
Shine bright like an Qscar . . .
It's certainly not as perpetually comedic as, say, Modern Family, Big Bang Theory, etc., but I feel like, since everything can be classified as a drama (since everything has dramatic elements), to be classified under 'comedy', a show needs to basically just have at least several comedic moments/scenes per episode, which Girls has. Shows like Game of Thrones, Homeland, etc, rarely have more than perhaps one comedic line in them. (Of course, it's up to each person to decide if they think the moments intend to be comedic are actually funny, but that's another thing).
I felt like the only highlight of this last episode was that call at the end...
This Booth Jonathan guy should be gone for good now, what an asshole
Sometimes comedy can head to areas that are cringe inducing and sometimes they can head to areas that are very subtle. It's not always slapstick or a punchline.
I chuckled or laughed at more than a few moments in the latest episode. Shoshanna not comprehending Ray's distaste for going to listen to Donald Trump may be based on something deeper than Trump hiring his daughter. Little Women. The argument between Booth Jonathan and his assistant over the scoop of rosewater ice cream with Marnie overdoing her suck up behavior to to a point that even Booth Jonathan is left going it's not that bad. Jessa, in a state of ennui, dropping things. Pretty much everything involving that dog (that it's bit Adam and it appears he has an infection, that Adam stole it, that Ray is needed as backup in returning it, etc). Marnie's not so sly attempt to hide Hannah's raincoat under the blazer. Booth Jonathan bullshitting about how rare it is for him to cry (love the in joke playing off of Jemima Kirke crying at Marina Abramovic at the MoMA and how Booth Jonathan's crying is exagerated) and being called out unknowingly by a friend (the pretentious artist boasting with lies is too dead on).
As for the rest of the episode, I found it somewhat heartbreaking. Last week, Hannah lived out a fantasy and found it unfulfilling even as it met the path she probably had fantasized for herself in the future in terms of stability. Jessa is separated after a marriage she entered solely to find a sense of stability she had falsely believed would make her fulfilled. Shoshanna has a boyfriend but, in a manner that is far different from Marnie, is trying to get him to mold himself into what she expects of a boyfriend.
Then we have Marnie. I do think Charlie will enter the picture again but I don't see Marnie/Charlie in the way I see Hannah/Adam. Hannah and Adam seem to complete each other. I know that is trite but there is a sense of a deep love for each other just as there is a sense that the depth of that love is something fresh, something hard to grasp for both. I don't think either is remotely attractive in terms of their personality. But I can see how they would be attracted to each other's personalities. There is something both animalistic and surprisingly tender. It is in this relationship, one not based on a desire for stability and status, that I think Hannah finds a romantic (and sexual) fulfillment that Marnie knows she has never felt.
I no more would hope that Marnie would end up back with Charlie, someone she is not in love with and a case where both use each other for safety valves, than I would want her to be with a arrogant Booth Jonathan. The thing about Booth Jonathan and Marnie's argument is they are both in the wrong. Booth Jonathan clearly sent out messages of a this is a romance vibe and he knowingly did so so he could achieve a conquest. While Marnie filled in way too many blanks of her own in giving the relationship an importance that far exceeded what was occurring, she was manipulated by Booth Jonathan. Yet Booth Jonathan is right as he throws his wine bottle dropping accusation. Marnie is not in love with him as a person. Marnie is not aroused by him as a person. Marnie is in love with and aroused by his status in the art world just as, when she uses Charlie, she is in want of stability. As with Jessa late last year, Marnie is in love with the idea not the person. And Booth Jonathan, even if he is using this accusation as an attempt to excuse himself of his manipulative ways, understands this presumably because he has been down this road before. When Marnie really falls in love with someone, I have a feeling it is going to shock her. Because I doubt she has ever felt in love before.
The deepest love Marnie has is the platonic love she shares with Hannah. And that is why the scene between Hannah and Marnie on the phone is far more romantic than the sequence a few episodes ago between Marnie and Charlie on the roof. The silence between Hannah and Marnie is spine-tingling. This sequence invokes a passion that we don't typically see of Marnie. It is a passion that does not exist with the choices she has made in lovers and that is because she seeks lovers based on ideas of what she wants. Hannah may meet a guy who falls for her, is Patrick Wilson handsome, who is wealthy, etc. but he cannot invoke in her what Adam does. The idea of the Patrick Wilson character just cannot match up to Adam when it comes down to it. Much of that is because Adam sees Hannah in a as a special, creative, invigorating force in the world and it makes her feel desired in a way that even her fantasy man cannot. Now wonder Ray's remarks about Hannah to Adam set him off. The love story of Girls is not Adam and Hannah though. It is Hannah and Marnie.
The character who came off the saddest was Ray. Ray is not on the same wavelength with Shoshanna. She doesn't get his jokes. He feels he is failing her (for the first time he is being confronted by his lack of goals). He thinks she is far too good for him. Ray sabotages a possible friendship with Adam and is then emasculated brutally by the dog owner's daughter. And his response is to comment on her lack of financial security (which is really one of the reasons he is feeling worthless). The final image of that muzzled dog and him (sad, lonely, and feeling worthless) harks back to Marnie on that phone. I love the sequence and it is topped off by the perfect song choice, a haunting cover of "Fool to Cry" by Tegan and Sara.
The director is Claudia Weill, who is a reminder of how difficult it was (and many times still is) for a female director to find feature film work after a misfire. She made the promising cult film Girlfriends and then came the misfire of It's My Turn. So at 33 years old, that is, I believe, the last time she got to make a theatrical feature film. She directed one of my favorite episodes of tv of the 2000's, the beautiful "Honor Among Thieves" episode from Once and Again.
Last edited by ldw; 02-18-2013 at 03:16 PM.
Girls is a lot more explicitly funny than, say, Enlightened (which is also great.) Was I the only one who found John Cameron Mitchell fucking hilarious in his short scene?
No, absolutely not. I was dying.
Allison Williams is killing it this season!
Agreed, and I think if any of the Supporting characters is embraced by the Emmys, it'd be her, largely b/c she has significantly more screen time than Jessa or Shoshana.
Allison Williams deserves to get in I think.
I prefer Jemima Kirke but I would be fine with any of the supporting actresses getting in.
I understand that but for me even The Good Wife has more of those comedic scenes and moments than Girls.
As far as acting nominations, the one I would be interested in seeing possibly break through is Adam Driver. The tough thing there is that category seems to routinely ignore many of the finest performances on television. I'd love to see it do well in the writing categories. It, Louie, and Archer dominating that category would be cool. While they would probably go with one of the Dunham directed episodes, the direction of One Man's Trash by Shephard is the one I'd like to see in the direction category (though that could change with 4 episodes left). I hope the season keeps up this strong streak.
Poor Sosh. She's obviously the Charlotte of this lot and will have to wait to be recognized at the end...or not at all.
I
Will Oscar have Riva Fever?
I'd like to think that if it weren't for Modern Family's stranglehold on the category, Adam Driver would be a pretty easy nominee and eventual winner. He's got the material for it. That being said, if Girls can stay relevant for a while, it'll probably start grabbing supporting nominations for the ladies, because that category is pretty bare.
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